The Skeptics

Senator Charles Schumer is the commensurate Washington insider, the guy who has been involved in politics for most of his life. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1974 he was elected to the New York State Assembly, and then elected to the U.S. House of Representatives at the ripe age of 29 years old. Since 1999, Schumer has been a member of the U.S. Senate, where he’s risen through the Democratic leadership ranks.

Like the rest of us, many people in and around Zhongnanhai must now be trying to work out what Donald Trump means for them. On economic matters, they may follow everyone else, including global stock markets, in apparently discounting Trump’s colorful threats to U.S.-China trade relations, and thus assuming that nothing much will change. Time alone will tell whether that is right or not.

One of the fruits of Donald Trump’s unexpected victory is the opportunity to fill thousands of political positions. But he is preparing to become the national government’s chief executive without a deep personnel bench behind him. There is no Team Trump like Team Clinton.

How a President Trump will approach relations with Russia — and especially what that means for U.S. policy in the Syrian civil war — has become one of the most discussed issues during a tumultuous transition. But we should be paying at least as much attention to what America’s putative partners — including those groups currently receiving U.S. taxpayer funding — are doing to prolong a brutal conflict that has claimed nearly 500 thousand lives, and driven more than ten million from their homes.

The “unthinkable” happened. The year that gave us Brexit and Filipino bandwagoning with China appropriately ended with Donald Trump being elected as the next President of the United States. I kept unthinkable within quote marks because none of the mainstream analysis predicted Trump’s win. It is of course important to avoid the trap of monocausality, as CNN listed a staggering twenty-four theories that are now being put forward to explain the rise and eventual win of Trump.

There are few higher foreign policy priorities for the new Trump Administration than addressing the highly disruptive and potentially catastrophic conflict brewing sinisterly in Ukraine. The annexation of Crimea, as well as Russia’s continuing military initiatives in the eastern Ukrainian Donbas region, represent egregious violations of international law. These actions have had a devastating impact on U.S.-Russian relations which have reverted to Cold War levels, undermining all constructive discourse.

Ever since Douglas MacArthur returned to the island of Leyte on October 20, 1944, the Philippines has been considered a loyal U.S. ally. In 1947, both countries signed an agreement that granted the United States the right to use military bases in the Philippines. Even after rising anti-American sentiment in the 1980s led to the U.S.

Donald Trump’s upset election win has set the media both here and abroad all aflutter about the probable direction of his foreign policy. Panicked internationalists already are proclaiming that the surprise outcome of America’s presidential election represents a great triumph for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who is supposedly a great friend, if not the puppet master of Donald Trump.

Now that “the Donald” pulled off the miracle at the ballot box he was looking for (this Tuesday’s election was a modern day political version of David vs. Goliath), we can all stop prognosticating about whether Trump’s comments about women and Mexicans would translate into an influx of minorities and college-educated white voters seeking to defeat him. Based on the exit poll data, that clearly didn’t happen.

Few people expected there to be a President-elect Donald Trump. Winning the election wasn’t easy. Governing will be much tougher.

Although the Americans who voted for him likely are most interested in domestic and economic reform, international challenges are likely to prove more pressing. Indeed, the world may be messier in January than today. And the usual coalition of neoconservatives and liberal interventionists undoubtedly will press him to embrace current policy and treat Uncle Sam as Globocop.